A Proper Marriage (45 page)

‘Do you know him well?’ asked Douglas jealously. She looked up at him for some time in silence; her eyebrows went up. He coloured up and said firmly, ‘What does he mean by the group? A political group?’

She said with a sudden aggressiveness, ‘Ever since we’ve been married you agreed I wasn’t only to housekeep and mind babies.’

They were on the edge of a quarrel about the group, since it was taboo to be jealous. ‘Well, I didn’t say you shouldn’t,’ he hastened to conciliate. Then, as she preserved silence: ‘You know, Matty, I’m in the Service, and I must be careful. You know old John lost his job because of his wife.’

She flushed and said, ‘His wife drank, didn’t she?’

‘Well, but, Matty, I have to go slow.’

‘Since I suppose three-quarters of the male population is in the Service one way and another, it seems a useful way of keeping you quiet.’

‘But, Matty, we have the vote.”

‘The vote!’ she said derisively. He was puzzled. They looked at each other across a wider gulf than they knew.

‘Anyway,’ he said, brightening, ‘there’ll be so much work to do in the new house, you won’t have time.’

‘Quite,’ said Martha. He shot her a startled, uneasy look. Martha had not, previously, been capable of saying ‘Quite’. He smelled the influence of the British invasion. But what was particularly unsettling was her tone, calm and dismissing and fatalistic, as if she accepted a long-foreseen calamity.

‘Surely,’ he said, in the voice of an injured boy, ‘surely you’re pleased to have a house of your own.’

Again her eyebrows rose, and she said, ‘There’s nothing in the world I want more.’ Then she burst into laughter, and kissed him on the cheek, moving away immediately as he grabbed at her.

‘There’s Caroline,’ she said hastily. Caroline had in fact begun to yell with impatience. Martha went out. Silence from Caroline. Then Douglas followed her. Martha had gone past Caroline to the bedroom. He made some hasty apologetic noises at his daughter and went into the bedroom.

Martha was arranging Caroline’s night things on the bed. She glanced up, startled, as he entered; then seemed to remind herself that he had a right to. He watched her for a while, then went across and put his arms around her from behind.

‘I’ve been missing you, Matty,’ he began.

She stiffened and said gaily - and it was the first time he had heard the warm, amused gaiety which was how he had thought of her in the Army - ‘Oh, so have I.’ She turned round and kissed him. After a moment she pulled away and said, ‘Well, I must get Caroline washed.’

‘Oh, damn Caroline,’ he said huskily. ‘Let’s forget her for a while.’ She appeared not to hear him. He said in an offended voice, ‘Where are my civvies?’

‘Packed in your trunk. If you’d let me know, I’d have got them cleaned and ready for you.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

He found some old flannels, pulled on a sweater. ‘It’s good to be in my own clothes again – I’ve put on weight,’ he said rather appealingly.

She responded quickly, with, ‘Oh, it’s not so bad.’ But the clothes were straining round him, she thought he looked gross.

‘Look, Matty, how about putting Caroline in the car and running up for a drink at the Club?’

She paused and looked at him, Caroline’s nightdress in her hand. He could not read her expression. ‘You know,’ she said, cautiously, ‘things are not as they used to be here.’

He exploded in a peevish shout. ‘Oh, come on, don’t be such a wet blanket.’

The hatred between them then was so strong it frightened them both. Without comment, she reached for a jersey, slipped it on, walked out, picked up Caroline and waited at the door, all in the manner of someone obeying an order. He would have liked to slap her.

They went in silence down the stairs. In the car, he slid with satisfaction into the driver’s seat and said, ‘It’s good to be driving the old bus again.’

She seemed to be very occupied with Caroline, and they drove without speaking to the Club. When they reached the turn, he stopped the car, and looked at the building, smiling twistedly. It stood unchanged in its green playing fields, the large white beautiful house, very dignified, the late afternoon sun shining full on it. He started the car again, and drove rapidly towards it, parked hastily, jumped out, smiling with eagerness. She walked quietly beside him to the veranda.

As they went up the steps she did not look at him, but went hurriedly ahead and found a table. He stood unconsciously staring about him on the steps. His face was sagging with helpless disappointment. The long deep veranda was crowded with people, as it always had been; but they were all new faces, save for some of the girls who smiled and
waved at him. The grey-blue of the Air Force filled the place like a – well, it was wartime, after all! He came across to Martha, and sat down clumsily. Martha glanced at his face and then away. He had gone a queer yellowish colour and was breathing hard. This was the real moment of coming home; she was very sorry for him. She did not want to be sorry, it made a guilty maternal love stir in her. She thought determinedly that the lumpish reddened face with its spoilt protruding underlip was that of a schoolboy, but longed to comfort him nevertheless. They ordered beer, and drank it quickly, while Martha kept Caroline near her. In the old days the Club babies went from table to table, lap to lap. Now there was formality and a sense of closed groups who were not willing to be disturbed. A couple of the girls came up and greeted Douglas. Every second word was Air Force slang, and it was clear they had other interests than returning crocks from up north.

Douglas watched a group of girls he had danced and played with for so many years flirting with some young officers, and then remarked, with grumbling good humour, ‘I begin to see there’s a war on.’ He laughed unhappily, and she joined him in relief. The colour had come back to his face, and it wore a look of ironical acceptance.

‘We ought to go,’ said Martha. ‘It’s time to put Caroline to bed.’ He got up immediately; he was pleased to go.

As they walked down the veranda, various girls called out. ‘Well, Douggie, and how’s the war?’

‘I don’t know,’ he returned good-humouredly, ‘I never reached it.’

When they got home, Caroline would not allow herself to be put to bed. She was delighted to have a father, her father was delighted with her. He played with her. He felt surprised respect at the little person she had become. When he laid her down, he loosened the tiny delicate arms from around his neck reluctantly. She at once climbed to her feet and rattled the bars of the cot, looking at this new man with her black alert eyes.

‘We shouldn’t have this cot in our bedroom now,’ he said, and at once he began pushing it into the other room. Martha
said nothing; she felt a pang of loss at her daughter being so unceremoniously removed; then reminded herself that she had not really liked having the child in her room; she was relieved that the cause of the inexplicable tension should be removed a little farther - physically at least.

‘Let’s go out and have a bite,’ suggested Douglas, having left Caroline shouting protests on the veranda.

‘We can’t go out and leave Caroline,’ said Martha promptly. It sounded almost as if she were scoring a point over him.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed, slumped forward, very still, very distant. She had changed a great deal, he decided; and tried to define the change. She felt his eyes on her and turned and looked at him defensively, flashing a guilty smile. At once he was beside her, had clasped her. ‘Well, Matty, it would be nice if you were a little pleased to see me.’

‘Of course I’m pleased to see you.’ But he felt she was stiff under his hands. She seemed to be listening. ‘Caroline’s not asleep,’ she said warningly, meaning that she could not give her mind to love-making while the child’s sounds and movements were twanging at her nerves.

He did not understand this, and said stiffly, ‘Oh, very well, then let’s eat instead.’

She quickly escaped and began to prepare a meal. He lay on his elbow on the bed reading, or rather, looking vaguely at the book while he thought in a wave of bitter longing, Up north now they’re in the real thing.

Almost at once Martha produced an omelette and some stewed fruit. She seemed surprised and hurt when he suggested this was not a meal to greet a soldier with. He ate it all in a few hearty mouthfuls, and said, ‘Now let’s eat properly.’

‘But what about your ulcer?’

‘Oh, to hell with my ulcer.’

Caroline was asleep, lying loose among her blankets, fists at the level of her head, the small face flushed.

‘I’ll tell the woman over the corridor,’ Martha said, and left him to do so. She was away inside the other flat some
time; he listened to the women’s voices, and it occurred to him for the first time that Martha had built up a life of her own, with obligations and responsibilities. He heard her say as she came out, ‘If you want to go out tomorrow, let me know.’

‘Who’s she?’ he asked her, trying to show an interest.

‘Oh - she has a baby,’ said Martha evasively.

‘She’s a friend of yours?’

‘A
friend?’
said Martha in surprise.

‘Well - do you see much of her?’

‘We don’t like each other, actually. But she keeps an eye on Caroline when I’m shopping, and I look after her kid.’

‘Let’s go to McGrath’s.’

‘Oh, no, not McGrath’s,’ said Martha nervously, and he flashed out again belligerently, ‘I said McGrath’s!’

She had been wanting to save him from another disappointment; now she felt meanly pleased that it would serve him right.

At the entrance to the big marble-and-gilt lounge he paused, with a boyish, expectant look on his face. His face changed. It was, of course, filled with the RAF. Not a soul looked up to greet him. He moved stoically through under the gilded pillars. Then he saw a waiter he knew and greeted him like an old friend. The Indian bowed and smiled over his tray of filled glass beer mugs and said it was fine to have Mr Knowell back again.

Douglas and Martha went into the big dining room. Uniforms … There was room for them at the end of a large crowded, noisy table. They ate one of those vast meals which must be among the worst offered to suffering humanity anywhere, the southern-African hotelier’s contribution to the British tradition in food. Douglas ate steadily, and with great satisfaction, speaking very little.

‘Well, I needed that,’ he announced at last, laying his spoon down after the Pears au Paris. Then: ‘Now, let’s have a drink.’ They moved to the lounge and drank brandy and ginger beer for an hour, while the band played gypsy music. It was a very good band now. The influx of refugees from Hitler had brought musicians who had played to very
different crowds, who played now and remembered Vienna, Munich, Hamburg, Berlin.

When they got home Caroline had hardly moved. The sight of the small white exquisite limbs loosened in sleep always gave Martha acute pleasure. She covered them reluctantly, and went to the bedroom, There Douglas was already naked: a stout young man, very white, with ruddy-brown arms and knees and face. She hung about nervously and then took her nightclothes to undress in the bathroom.

‘We haven’t any contraceptives,’ she announced defiantly as she came back.

‘Well, that means you’ve been behaving yourself at least,’ he said, laughing hopefully, She got into bed beside him as if in a room full of strangers, tucking her feet in chastely with the nightgown around her ankles. ‘Have you, by the way?’ he asked casually.

‘As much or as little as you have,’ she said quickly, and then, as if she herself found this banner of feminism absurd, added a short unhappy laugh, Mistakenly encouraged by the laugh, he rolled over, prodded her in the ribs and said, ‘Ah come off it, Matty. Let’s take a chance for tonight.’

‘Oh no, you don’t,’ she exclaimed involuntarily.

‘Well, why not? It would be nice for Caroline to have a brother nearly her own age.’

‘You see no reason why I shouldn’t be made pregnant on the first night you’re home?’ she inquired in a fine cold voice. But it sounded forlorn.

He lay on his back, arms behind his head, looking at the ceiling. On his face was an ugly, angry look; he grinned after a while with ironic appreciation. ‘There’s no place like home,’ he produced at last.

At this Martha felt a confused sort of anguish, partly because she was unable to compete with the attractions of ‘the boys’, of whom he was thinking at that moment; partly because she was behaving like the unpleasant female who gave or withheld favours; partly because she thought there must be something very wrong with her not to want him. She turned out the light. There was moonlight splashing all over the bottom of the bed. She saw, for the first time that
season, the shape of the big wheel in the window - they must have set it up that morning. She suddenly wanted to cry.

He rolled over, and she understood that he had been by no means discouraged. She set herself to be as compliant as possible; to her astonishment, even a certain pride, he was not able to distinguish the difference between this and the real thing. Afterwards, full of childish affection and a gratitude which grated on her, he said, ‘I was careful, Matty.’